Team Herald
PANJIM: As many as 400 investors from seven States have been duped of a collective amount of Rs 1 crore by a firm that opened its ‘business’ in Goa taking advantage that casino tourism is drawing a massive tourist inflow in the State.
The Economic Offences Cell (EOC) cracked down on the investment scam with the arrest of four persons who operated in the heart of Panjim in the guise of a travel agency.
Police managed to arrest four former real estate agents acting on a complaint of Ismail Munshi that company named ‘Dreams2Reality’ was accepting deposits from persons from Rs 10,000 to Rs 5 lakh with a promise of daily returns of up to 3 per cent, along with free entry into casinos in Goa, hotel stays and air tickets to Goa.
“It also offered additional benefits like iPhones, Scooties, Bullet motorcycles and even Audi cars to existing investors for getting new customers. However, the firm did not give any receipts to the deposits made,” a release from the EOC SP Shobhit Saxena stated. Inquiries revealed that all their functioning was online through a website www.dreams2casino.com where, like a casino it provided daily earnings, stakes, etc.
“Discrete enquiry was carried out and it was found that Dreams2Reality was running under the guise of a travel agency. It had received no permissions from the RBI, SEBI or any other regulating agency for accepting deposits or investment. There was no investment made when their suspected bank accounts were analysed and the money was circulating between various accounts of the fraudsters and some amounts were being paid back to the investors to build confidence in the scheme and draw more investors,” the SP revealed.
On inquiry, Saxena added that the raid carried out by his team, comprising of DySP Ezilda D’Souza, Police Inspectors Rajendra Prabhudessai and Pravin Vast at the alleged accused’s rented residential premises at Kadamba Plateau and office premises in Panjim, based on which evidence was gathered against the accused.
The mastermind Dasarath Boora and Adi Ganesh, who was designated as the official head of the company, Fakruddin, their Goa agent and IT expert Sandeep are now in custody while the police are verifying involvement of a Goan associate Shweta.
The accused, it is found, have duped 400 persons so far from across seven States who invested through the website. The officer informed Herald that while a majority of the customers are from Gujarat, the remaining are from Goa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. “There is a possibility (more investors could be duped from other States as well) as we are still in the process of drawing up the list of all their agents,” he said.
Interestingly, the accused had collected Rs 1 crore from 400 investors within one month while their intention, he said was to dupe people for three months and shut their operations without intimation. By this period, the accused had estimated to collect around Rs 5 crore.
“Upon interrogation of the accused persons it was established that although they had fashioned their scheme as for investment in casino games, it was actually money circulating, multi-level marketing and ponzi scheme where they were just transferring parts of funds received as investments from new customers to their old ones. They stated that they started the scheme in Goa after they came to Goa in September 2019 when they hatched an idea to exploit the unique and attractive casino tourism of Goa by offering people outside Goa to be able to play and invest in these casinos,” the SP added.
The mastermind has confessed that they had several agents in various States who were bringing in investment and getting commissions on a daily basis. Earlier in January, the mastermind and his core team – now under arrest – held several meetings with their investors and agents in a hotel in Panjim under the banner of Dreams2Reality.
The accused hail from Suryapet and Nalagonda in Telangana and Hosur in Tamil Nadu. They were earlier real estate agents and then tried their luck as agents in other ponzi schemes in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra after which they decided to start their new fraudulent venture in Goa.
